Ocean Sounds

The Ocean -- a rather confounding body of water which has continuously assaulted humanity by way of sharks, tsunamis, and bermuda triangles... it is just as well one of our most revered sanctuaries for both pleasure and relaxation.

Ocean and beach waves are natural sources of 'oscillating' white noise. The elements of rhythm are at play, steady and uninterrupting yet constantly fluctuating, and each lazy sough of gentle ocean surf acts as a prelude to unwinding the soul from the moorings of the office chair.

I have never been more charmed by a country quite like Sri Lanka. As ubiquitous as poverty is, right alongside the high infant mortality rates, these people are albeit proud, educated, genuinely hospitable, and sedulously spiritual.

For example, my guide Carlu had an advanced collegiate degree, could speak several languages fluently, knew almost every single plant and animal by both their Latin and common names including hilarious scientific anecdotes, but most importantly he was remarkably at ease and eager to discuss the meaning of life for hours on end during the lazy evening hours.

Even though he was in his sixties, he was tireless. One morning he forgot to arrange for my brunch to be packed up for the field, so without comment we promptly stopped at a small communal village so that he could buy me a meal (equivalent to several days’ worth of wages). I irrevocably pried the truth out of him and he confessed that he’d rather labor for days than to have me skip a brunch because he was forgetful. I bussed him on the cheek and squeezed his testicles.

Carlu is just one of the many reasons that Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, R.I.P March 19, 2008) lived here, which introduces how I had come to visit Sri Lanka in the first place.

A good childhood friend of mine had just returned from Sri Lanka on a business trip, and she suggested that I travel to the island country to record some of the environment because the denizens are so spiritually uplifting. Though despite the dense population, she assured me that it was also a quiet place, relatively free of noise pollution in the rural areas. The biosphere reserves are very well respected and preserved which to my favor complemented generously my existing library of environmental ambience and wildlife recordings.

She also suggested that I write to Sir Clarke, “You don’t need an address for a BAMF like Arthur C. Clarke, just use Colombo, Sri Lanka, and it’ll get to him.” Oy, could there really be such a place left in this world? I wrote the correspondence letter that same day. Three weeks later, I received a hand written letter in my mailbox from Mr. Clarke graciously referring me to several scholars and experts on nature and Carlu was one of them.

Carlu took me to the Kanneliya Forest, Hurulu Reserve, Horton Plains, and Kalutara Beach, and all four places produced environmental ambience recordings of sexcellent quality.

Sleepy Beach Waves takes place on the secluded Kalutara Beach, which is a long, narrow strip of land of situated 38 kilometers south of Mr. Clarke’s house and rests between the waters of the Laccadive Sea and a wider inlet of water to the east.

The weather and tide conditions were nothing short of perfect that evening — a crème de la crème of widely spaced waves sweeping singularly and sensuously across the smooth, moist, shimmering sand. The lush ebb and flow of waves — both distant and near — gently caress the shore as they break and recede, leaving a light hissing symphonic trail of sound as the surf ever so softly sizzles itself in.

There was no wind at all, which was pretty rare for an open beach — so I removed the microphone windscreens to allow every creamy little detail to be recorded. At the conclusion of this hour long field recording session I snapped up this photo.

Relaxing beach ambience at its best – without the seagulls, without the swimmers, without the sailors. No birds, no animals, no people, no music. No looping or layering effects were used. This is one full hour of pure, unadulterated, wholesome beach waves — both distant and near — lapping against the sun-kissed sandy shores of the Kalutara on a sleepy September sunset twilight.

This soundscape captures the most primal essence of stranded seaside serenity and solitude in 360-degree binaural surround sound. Ah… so peaceful here. Yet there’s fighting going on somewhere at this very minute. Slip on a pair of stereo headphones and dare to cast yourself away.

Far beyond the hectic concrete jungle of modern life there exists a parallel reality, an undiscovered world where you can still see and hear things in their purest and most innocent forms.

This field recording situated at the end of a cavern is as primal as it gets. Listen and swathe yourself in melancholy as you experience a private world perhaps as old as human consciousness itself where the most primeval origin and essence of human personal security remains preserved.

Chill out and relax to the low, slow, halcyon breaths of the Atlantic as they resonate, naturally lulled and muffled, into the hollow undulating tunnel walls of nature’s own reverberator — the deep claustral interior of a secluded beachfront cavern I found off the coast of Lydstep Beach.

The cavern is shaped like the human ear canal which collects sounds naturally — the sound of the tide sweeping against the granite walls of the cavern all amalgamate and bounce towards the center where my mikes are carefully positioned.

A deep, smooth, dark ambient texture of prenatal, primordial memories… where the only porn that existed in our time was no more grandiose than horribly malproportioned phalluses on the walls of such most humble abodes.

End of the Cavern is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long digital stereo omnidirectional HRTF field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

Although some parts are only accessible by boat, spend a week within and around the Small Isles off the coast of Skye in Scotland and it’ll happily dawn upon you that the beauty and splendor of this breathtaking island archipelago finds itself aesthetically rivaled only by its soothing canorous bluster and melodious maritime soughs.

This breezy seashore soundscape was binaurally recorded and photographed at Laig Bay on the Isle of Eigg. In the distance, the sun takes a seat atop the Isle of Rùm, respite from the heat of its long day — and I’m sitting on a rock tickling the sand with my feet as I replay in my mind the shifting moods and varied venues of my own vested day.

In the background, a soothing low breeze quietly bustles along the surface of the water as it spreads across the ocean and permeates into the bay. It is calmer here, and it’s somewhat of a mitigating relief to listen to the ocean’s song from this location — most of the waves and winds that would have made it into the bay are blocked by the surrounding cliffs.

The muffled ocean swells and complaisant sighing winds are in tranquil unison, and they act upon one another in joyful confluence to wash away the listener’s worries. The background breeze constantly mumbles in low monotonous baritone, the distant rolling waves are blended and modified by the ocean’s draft and multiplied by the bay’s echoing cliffs, and water from the enervated surf gently laps against the foreground conglomeration of rocks and small boulders in whispered laughs of splash and spray.

Ocean Breeze is a natural soundscape composed of edited and mixed digital stereo quasi-binaural field recordings. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

Healing Waves features soft secluded turquoise waves breaking offshore upon long ridges of sandbars, which then roll up and wash onto the glistening coast with positively relaxing vicissitudes of both impulse and impuissance.

Designed with a view of rest and recovery for tired bodies and aching appendages, for exerted minds and exhausted faculties, for wounded hearts and disenchanted souls, this silky smooth ocean soundscape relaxes and recuperates, recenters and re-equilibrates, revitalizes and refreshes the listener with a watery cradle of complete auditory zen.

To record Healing Waves a secluded low tide area was selected, surrounded by a stunning profusion of forests and rocky cliffs, far from homes and highways in an isolated bay. Recording took place during the early evening twilight.

You can hear the low rumbling frequencies of the distant breaking waves, which eagerly precede the final overspread upon the beach. Every so often the subtle strike of ocean spray can just as well be heard lapping against the large foreground rock sitting off in the distance a little to the left of the microphones.

This specific region proved to be perfect for recording the evening tide without any distractions. The result is a pure pristine recording that sounds very open, immediate, alive, and overflowing with the energy of harmonic ocean waves.

Healing Waves is a natural soundscape digitally recorded using stereo binaural HRTF microphones and includes no sounds of animals, birds, people, voices, or traffic. No music has been added. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for quality listening.

Listen to this if you ever reach into the blender to dislodge a stuck icecube without unplugging it first.

A late winter evening on a stranded secluded rocky pine island. Life slows its pace as a heavenly pulsation of effervescent ocean surf immerses the mind with currents of emotional ambiguity.

Unified waves of liquid sound flow into expansions of mammoth proportions, filling the mental universe with their calming effect.

Mesmerized, the binaural listener moves without motion, subconsciously searching through synapses triggered by the psychosomatic response of oceanic oscillations stretched to the point of infinity.

These efferent waves of natural white noise achieve an unfurling that is hidden in the soothing nature of the melodic evolution of the elements. This unfurling produces somewhat of an inspirational effect, as the sonic mood effortlessly carries the listener into contemplative regions — and the listener’s inner consciousness finds itself expanding in direct ratio to the ocean tide’s intangible growth.

I set the binaural microphones into the shoreline rocks of the eastern end of this small (but relatively steep) island. Rolling Surf can be utilized as an invigorating, simultaneously unintrusive background ambience to facilitate concentration.

Rolling Surf is a non-looped natural soundscape composed of an hour-long on-location digital stereo quasi-binaural field recording. This recording technique produces a three-dimensional audio image when listening with earphones or headphones. Bitrate encoded at 192 kbps for finest audio reproduction.

If there is one thing I would relinquish my left buttock for should such a situation arise, it’d most unequivocally hands down bar none be keeping the great privilege of couchsurfing. When I traveled to Estonia on business I had stayed with couchsurfing host Hedi for two wonderful days and I was wholesomely treated and catered to fifty times better than any five star resort could’ve managed. She provided free transportation, free information, free food, a free bed, but most importantly friendship and great conversation.

Keen on archiving nature’s myriad proclamations, one of the places she took me to was a secluded stoney beach where she had spent her childhood summers. A beach which at the water’s edge sang over a gravelly bed and curved and frisked in and out and here and there — a divine place for wading, which on one side is brisk sparkling water as far as the eye can see, while on the other side there is endless wilderness — a land of forest, rocks, and hills.

Though a poverty of wildlife was noted, suffice it to say shoreline listening often offers the most productive diversity of sounds and interesting acoustic behavior. Where the two meet, the water action has gently polished and softened the edges of the stones and boulders over the millennia. It is a process that continues today as light saline waves continue to roll towards the Baltic shore. When they reach the shore, the gentle waves create musical splashes as they wash over the rocks. This relaxing melody forms a unique counterpoint to the sound of the main breaking waves.

Baltic Waves is perfect for lounging and meditation, or for a cooling ambience. There are no birds or animals or music. It is simply the relaxing sounds of water and waves. Edited digital binaural field recording. Encoded at a bitrate of 192 kbps for quality listening.

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